Lamar Demotes Corporal Over Gunfire Incident

An Orange County sheriff's corporal has been demoted to deputy after firing three shots, while off duty, at a car fleeing an accident, according to a department report released Monday.

Sheriff Lawson Lamar also ordered Deputy Jose Cruz suspended without pay for a week as a result of the June 30 accident and chase in west Orlando. Cruz will not appeal the decision.

The report found that in addition to improperly firing his gun, Cruz lied about the shooting when he first told two sheriff's investigators and an Orlando police officer that he hadn't fired shots.

Cruz later told a department investigator that he fired shots at the fleeing station wagon during the chase because it had hit his car at Washington Street and South Orange Blossom Trail.

Cruz, 32, a deputy for five years, told investigators he and his 16-year- old daughter were headed home from the U.S. Marshal's Office, 80 N. Hughey Ave., when the accident occurred about 10 p.m. on June 30. Cruz works part time for the marshal's office and had gone there to return some keys.

The police department accident report and the sheriff's internal investigation gave the following account:

Cruz's daughter was driving. The two were westbound on Washington Street, stopped at the light at South Orange Blossom Trail, when a car eastbound on Washington ran a red light and collided with a car heading south on the Trail. The eastbound car slid through the intersection, spun around and hit the left front fender and door of Cruz's 1985 pickup truck, Cruz said. No one was hurt. The car then turned around and fled west on Washington Street at about 60 mph, reports said.

The driver of the station wagon that hit Cruz's car, Rohan Richards, 27, and the passenger, Evelyn Gray, 25, both of 4676 Edgemoor Drive, later told Orlando police they fled the scene because they were being chased and fired at before the accident by Gray's ex-husband, Lonzie Gray.

Lonzie Gray, 32, 202 Benson St., was charged with aggravated assault.

Cruz said he ordered his daughter to follow Richards' car. The two followed Richards for about five blocks. While headed south on either Kent or Jamil avenues between Washington and Central Boulevard, Cruz told investigators, he fired three times into ''the grassy area which parallels the street'' near Richards' car.

Cruz fired a personal pistol, not his department-issued revolver. Gray and Richards said the shots were fired within three to six seconds of each other. The chase continued at reduced speed for about four blocks, before Cruz's daughter passed the station wagon and forced it to stop on Central Boulevard near Halbe Avenue, the report said.

An Orlando assistant fire chief, also westbound on Central, saw Cruz's car stop Richards. At Cruz's request, the firefighter radioed for an Orlando police officer because the accident occurred inside city limits.

Gray and Richards told an Orlando officer that Cruz had fired two or three shots at them, so two sheriff's investigators were called to the scene about midnight July 1.

Cruz told both of them as well as the officer that he hadn't fired any shots. He explained three spent cartridges by saying he had shot snakes in his yard the day before.

Two days later, Cruz changed his story and admitted firing the shots. Richards and Gray declined to press charges against Cruz. Richards was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and disregarding a traffic signal.